Andkon's Daily Rightings

Andkon is the shining bacon of the 21^st century, single-handedly leading humanity out of the uncertain present. Apart from managing the world's best arcade, he writes daily to cultivate the ignorant masses

The Purposeless Pussy Who Wants to be a Marine (Or 'What gives you the right to mock our soldiers?')

Feb 07, 2005 @ 10:16

Over the past few days, I had an email conversation with Matthew, a 17-year-old who wants to fight in Iraq whose 18-year-old brother is getting shipped there later this month. It's a long discussion, but well worth to see what really goes on in the mind of such people who wish to face needless and counterproductive hardship just for the hell of it:

I was searching google for a link to the photos that will never make the news site and low and behold I ended up clicking yours before the real one. Being a 17 year old, with my one brother, 18- a United States Marine, on his way to Iraq come the end of this month...putting it bluntly I find it appalling that you would make your 'parody' of such a simple yet meaningful site. I myself plan on joining the military and think it is sad that it is people like you that my brother and hopefuly soon myself among many others are fighting for.

I thought you should know how I and I'm sure many others feel about what you've done.

My self-explanatory response:

What *have* *I* a done? Well, I know I haven't started a war against a nation that hadn't attacked the United States, so it can't be that.

Let me it put to you bluntly: you have about a 1 in 200 chance of getting killed, and one in 1 in 15 (!) chance of getting wounded. Your family has a one in seven chance of getting back a gimp or amputee, which is almost as good as playing Russian Roulette. Think about that and then think about how Iraq matters nothing and how Iraq had zero anti-American terrorists before the invasion. Also, you forgot to look at how Osama bin Laden's right.

I suggest you slightly injure your brother so he is unfit for duty next month and abandon your plans to be a hero in Iraq. Hey, just trying to save your life and the countless innocent Iraqis you two will probably kill, even if accidentally. (Not that it matters, dead is dead.)

I thought you should know the facts.

He answered with a long letter, full of emotional baggage, irrationality, and the standard "if you don't like the war, you're unpatriotic" bullshit (my response for spacial contraints is not formatted as above, but my response is below each sentence):

I'm not quite sure where you got my insinuating you had anything to do with starting the war in Iraq but thats beside the point.

I run a little website that hasn't killed anyone to my knowledge. Yet you are treating it as it had, like George W. Bush's war.

I'll start off by saying this, you say Iraq hadn't attacked the United States. I guess you, like so many other people happened to forget that for over a decade since the Gulf War our aircraft patrolling the no-fly-zone over Iraq have been being activly engaged and fired upon by Iraqi ground units.

Saddam showed defiance like a little pussy.

If that isn't an act of agression towards the United States, well, hell maybe we shouldn't have gotten involved in WWII either.

There wasn't a single plane that was brought down because of this.

I mean, how bad would it be living in a world run by the Third Reich right?

I've had grandparents who had the Third Reich burn down all our bridges in the capital. Then, Soviet troops stormed through the country, raping all women they saw. I was born in a communist dictatorship. While I only remember its downfall in fading memories, people tell me it wasn't exactly a utopia.

You can throw all the facts at me that you want about the chances of my brother getting wounded or killed, that doesn't change a thing. As far as I'm concerned, there could be a 1 in 2 chance of death and I'll still ask "where do I sign Sergeant?" I think it is safe to say that people like my brother and all people in military service have far more character, honor, courage and love of country; all of which seem to be foreign concepts to you.

As a person who earned the right to become an American citizen, I signed a paper that obliges me to fight on behalf of the United States of America, if the law mandates it. If anybody needs my help, I will be the first to defend this coutry, when it is attacked, not when it rushes into wars for profit.

I must say you are coming off to be the most unpatriotic and anti-American person that I have ever encountered. On the other hand, you seem to me enjoying your right of free speech very much through your website, yet you berate the very government and military that provides that right to you.

Read above. Refusing to fight in a war that gives Osama bin Laden the right to say "See, I told you they want to occupy Muslim lands, want to sign up for jihad" is now unpatriotic? What are you reading, buddy? Mein Kampf? George W. Bush is a dangerous man who granted Osama's biggest wish: American occupation of a soverign Mulsim state which showed no aggression towards America. Apart from nuking Mecca, I can't think of a worse thing Osama could have asked for.

You might not agree with the cause, you might not agree with the leadership and their decisions but what gives you the audacity to think you have the right to mock our soldiers who voluntarily and willingly accept the one in seven chance of coming home a "gimp or amputee" as you put it.

Who gives me the right? "We the people of these United States" who not like "abridging the freedom of speech." Read its source, it might teach you a few goals to strive for. But hey, a bunch of slave-owning slave fuckers wrote that. So it can't be anything of value, agreed?

They are doing their *job,* their job just as it is many peoples *job* to go to the office every day. It is afterall, a job and each soldiers respective branch a company. They go where they are told to and fight who they are told to just as anyone else would finish a report when they are told to by their boss.

Osama and his fighters are doing their *job,* too. I don't see you supporting them. You should send them an email of support to balance out your email karma.

The American as a whole have done nothing wrong, nothing to turn you are anyone else against them. Not only do they deserve your and every United States citizens respect, but your support as well. In the end they are the ones who secure the rights we so often take for granted, the rights which you are very much enjoying with your website. They may be fighting for something you don't believe in but they, like you, are United States citizens and they, unlike you, have a great deal of character, honor, courage and love of country.

How more could I support the troops by asking them not be killed? Also, Americans must not have character, honor, courage, or love of country because the most recent polls shows the majority against the war.

Going back to my initial statement, you might not find any credibility to my saying that Iraq has indeed attacked United States aircraft for over a decade. If that's the case, lets think of this. In less than 2 years, not only have we removed a dictator from Iraq who killed many thousands of his own people, we set up an interim government and just had a successful election.

Did you know that more Iraqi civilians have been killed since the war than Saddam killed in his infamous Kurdish genocide attack in Halabja in 1988?

No, let me say that again. An EXTREMELY successful election. Anyone who still doubts the idea of the Iraqi people wanting a democracy is frankly an idiot. We were shooting for about a 40% voter turnout which would have been outstanding. Incase you missed the headlines, after only 2 of the 3 days of voting 66% of registered Iraqi's voted. Come the end of the election period, many polling centers even ran out of ballots. I would call it a safe bet that that is a sign of a people that couldn't wait to rid themselves of Saddam and establish a democracy.

Most people voted for the party with guy with the cleric's robe and and white beard. There were zero speeches. Most of the candidates were unknown and never heard of. There was no democracy: people voted for lists and parties, not actual representatives. And why didn't they get to? Because candidates would have been targets of assassination. Democracy requires votes and candidates. The Iraqi election didn't meet that standard.

You should probably rethink your ideals, or maybe you would be better off moving to a nation where women are more or less not looked upon as human beings.

You have it completely wrong: since Saddam's fall, the number of "honor" killings of women and other gender-based crimes against women have dramatically increased. I'm not saying that Saddam by any means was good. I am saying that you need a clue.

Mind you, in that nation you'll have to keep your ideas to yourself. I don't think to many of them have the equivelent of a constituion or bill of rights and a government protecting the freedoms that you take for granted.

The very rights you say I'm guaranteed you say I don't have. So why do you want to fight in Iraq again? You didn't answer that.

He replied back briefly, like a pussy since he had nothing to say:

Well, there isn't much more that can be said to someone like you. It's clear you aren't open minded to anything, you have your ideas and anyone who doesn't agree is wrong.

Matt, I answered every single one of your sentences, but you can't do the same for me. If you want to tell me that you're going to have what it takes to kill people, try not to act like a pussy in a simply intellectual argument where you finally can't refute anything, except for:

I'll just leave you with this about the recent elections in Iraq. You say there were no speeches, no visible candiates to vote for. Granted there were over a hundred parties and candidates to go with them, but I guess you failed to watch the news and see that there was campaigning just like any election here in the United States. There were speeches, and even campaign vans if you would call them that, trucks and cars with speakers driving around telling about a candidate. Fear of being assinated? It *was* there. Clearly not enough fear though as the candidates did quite often show their faces. And as for the voters? I think its safe to say that waking up on the morning of the election to the sound of morters exploding just gave them more resolve to go out and vote, and not only vote, but to proudly show their ink stained fingers in the city streets.

Once again, you have your basic facts completely wrong: most candidates' names were unpublished until the voters saw them on ballots. That's not democracy: that's a charade pretending to be a democracy. The Iraqi people have voted for al-Sistani's religious party over the Interim PM's secular party. The Sunni minority consider the Shiites heretical, so making the Shiite religious leader the "power-behind the scenes" defacto ruler is extremely successful, if you're goal is either a civil war, a theocracy, or both. It's like the Pope being elected President. Such ideas are vastly unpopular in America among both the nonreligious and religious (electing religious figures to public office), and yet you're praising the very such thing in Iraq.

Why again do you want to fight in Iraq if the only thing you can still argue is based on your misinterpretation of the facts surronding the Iraqi election?

Matt was once again speechless and continued his meaningless ad hominem attack, focusing absolutely nothing on substance:

Like I said, I am done. I have no need to justify myself to you. You assume my wanting to serve in the military means I want to go and fight in Iraq. I wish to serve my country and if they want to send me to Iraq, then that is where I will go.

You said that you wish to join the military. You implied fully knowing the dangers of Iraq and accept going there without any reservation whatsoever, yet you gave not a single reason to 1) why you wish to serve there if needed 2) why it's needed in the first place.

I do have one last suggestion for you though. Why don't you go to the local Marine recruiting office, or any recruiting office for that matter, and show them your pictures, and feed them the bull that you've been telling me. I suggest you have an ambulance waiting for you to cart your sorry unpatriotic ass to the hospital after the local gunny is through with you.

The entire purpose of the website is to be as non-confrontational as possible, while still retaining a message. I have the right to express my opinions in any shape or form I like, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the United States of America, while you suggest that others have the right to physically intimidate me when I excercise such constitutional rights. Only in the Soviet Union or its satellites did people get beaten for expressing their points of view in the manner they saw fit. Beating people for their opinion is totalitarian, un-American, and unpatriotic.

Note: Matt never said why fighting in Iraq is needed or why he's so willing to fight. Reminds me of a terrorist who can't give a rational reaon as to why he's fighting, except the terrorist an argue he has nothing to lose... ("As far as I'm concerned, there could be a 1 in 2 chance of death and I'll still ask "where do I sign Osama?")

@_-- on Feb 07, 2005 @ 11:42 wrote

If you were a gay couple you would still not understand each other. Humm, that wasn't a very good explanation, should I try again?

Ashley on Feb 07, 2005 @ 13:39 wrote

Well...I would say that Matt is an idiot. I believe that I have a right to say this as I currently have TWO count them TWO brothers fighting in Iraq at this moment. I love and support my brothers with all my heart, however I vehemently disagree with the war in Iraq. Also, my brothers joined the military pre- 9/11...I doubt that they had the intention of storming into Iraq unprovoked, but they must follow orders. For this reason, I proudly display my "Support Our Troops" ribbons, stickers, etc. on my car my dorm door and other places. I do however, completely agree that anyone who VOLUNTARILY storms into Iraq by enlisting over a year into a pointless war is an idiot.

J6stik on Feb 07, 2005 @ 22:43 wrote

Some people should agree to disagree, you and him included. No offense, but you don't exactly come off as the greatest person by calling someone a "Purposeless Pussy Who Wants to be a Marine" who would fight and die for their country.

andkon on Feb 07, 2005 @ 23:14 wrote

Anybody who *wants* to die in Iraq is dying for Iraq, not for America. Matt tries to blur the lines by implying that fighting in Iraq somehow "secures the rights" of people like me.

He is a purposeless pussy because he won't concede (pussy) that he can't explain the connection, as there is none (purposeless).

@__@ on Feb 08, 2005 @ 08:14 wrote

If you agree with yourself that he is dumb, your 100% responsible for the outcome of your conversation. The other guy gets to wear the dress.

Mr_Black on Mar 31, 2005 @ 11:11 wrote

Blatant display of ignorance on Matt's part. If one doesn't know the whole story, there's no use bending facts to "make" one up

The Purposeless Pussy Who Wants to be a Marine (Or 'What gives you the right to mock our soldiers?')

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